The Late St. George's Day

I did not celebrate St Georges Day yesterday nor did I particularly feel the need to. I am not filled with patriotic fervour at the sight of a St George Cross and I do not love England.

I was born in Bromley, Kent and lived there until the age of seven when, thanks largely to my fathers Scottish birth and a fortuitous job transfer, we moved to Edinburgh. I then spent the next twenty-five years, including the vast majority of my schooling and the bulk of my working life so far, living in Scotland. Initially, there were plenty of fights and comments regarding my accent, which was particularly easy to laugh at given its Estuary drawl, but over time these diminished - despite my never completely acquiring a Scottish accent. (To the English I sound Scottish while to the Scots I still sound English). The other birthright I didn't surrender was an affinity for England - I still supported England in football and other sporting competitions, I missed the 'Green And Pleasant Land' of my daydreams, I yearned for what I regarded as England.

By the same token, I gradually became more and more aware of where the peculiar amalgam of the British Isles was letting its constituent parts down - in particular, Scotland. The London-centric nature of much of the British press and media irked the Scots, the government intransigence to 'Scottish' issues grated, the feeling that North Sea oil was being somehow stolen permeated minds and the obviously apparent indifference of the English rubbed their noses in it.

As time wore on the irritation turned to outright hostility towards Thatcher's visibly anti-Scottish government. Bear in mind that there were times when there was not a single Scottish Conservative MP and yet still Westminster held sway on decisions over a section of the populace they had no "democratic" right to represent. My own personal opinion is that the introduction of the Community Charge (or Poll Tax if you prefer) in Scotland in 1989/90, a year earlier than its introduction in England in 1990/91, as a kind of twisted experiment to gauge reaction and the subsequent lack of interest or concern from the English, until they also suffered from the same ill-fitting tax, was the catalyst for an explosion of Scottish nationalism. Here was the proof that the English cared not a jot for their neighbours North of The Border - when Thatcher introduced the massively unpopular Community Charge in Scotland and despite protests there was nothing, nada, not a murmur from down South but when she had the gall to introduce it in England rioting ensued. Less than ten months after the Trafalgar Battle, Thatcher had resigned and her replacement had announced the scrapping of the Community Charge. Had it not been introduced in England, would anyone have even noticed the ongoing application of its underlying unfairness in Scottish households? I doubt it myself.

From that point on the various flavours of Nationalism grew, unchecked, in popularity - whether it was Labour's idea of the, now-enacted, Scottish Parliament or the SNP's committed independence. Mel Gibson merely capitalised on what was already there and gave it a Hollywood legitimacy which caught the attention of the masses and further fuelled the nationalist ideal.

Throughout this period I still, despite not having lived there for a considerable length of time, regarded myself as English. I sympathised with all the Scottish issues - I had to, I was living there and they affected me as much as anyone else. I could not doubt the underlying beauty of the city I was living in - Edinburgh. I was more than happy with my education, job, friends, etc. and yet I still regarded myself as fundamentally English without really thinking about what that meant or implied. I suspect it was more a continuation of the knee-jerk reaction I had first felt on fighting somebody for taking the piss out of my accent - I was defending something about myself I felt and this defensive idea didn't leave me.

Once Mrs H and myself were together, we had regular trips down to South Manchester to visit her family, watch United, etc and, as is often the case, these visits also sparked a kind of English nationalism in myself - a kind of returning to the homeland if you will. These romantic yearnings were borne out by seeing pubs festooned with St George Crosses during the World Cup or European Championships, by a continued determination to support England at whatever the sport and by having married an English woman. So it was that once married to an English wife, who wished to be nearer to her family for the sake of our daughter, it was only a matter of time before we moved.

I have now lived back in England for five years and shit am I disappointed. I suspect my Jerusalem-ic thoughts were never going to be lived up to but the gradual shattering of illusions that has occurred has been nothing if not distressingly informative. Whilst these are massive generalisations I think that the English are an arrogant, egotistical race of people who still feel, wrongly of course, that the World owes them something. The legacy of Empire and the Industrial Revolution has left a dark, indelible stain on the English psyche and that stain can be seen in the self-destruction we seem so desperate to revel in and revile at the same time.

So no, I do not love Nationalism. I do not love neither Scotland nor England nor any nation. I do not love patriotism and I have no desire to celebrate St Georges Day or St Andrews Day or any other St's day for that matter. But I am still in love with the dream of what England could be and I think that is the legacy of my youthful idealism. And that dream is actually not limited to just the country of my birth - England was merely the metaphor which expressed my internationalism at a time when I wasn't actually in England - in much the same way as I long to "live" back in Scotland now or any other European country as it happens. I am of a class and that class is not an 'English' class, a 'British' class or even a European one - it is global, its aims are global and my feeling for it is global.